One day, I bought the Jace vs Vraska duel decks. Due to some traumatic events, Vraska and the deck she resided in is no longer with us. Now, I have turned my attention to Jace.
My initial plan was to make an illusion deck, and I quickly realised I had no supportive cards. And so, the idea to make a control deck came to me.
In reality, I proxy the corresponding shocklands rather than guildgates, but, the title does say budget, and to be honest I find myself very rarely paying 2 life anyway, so the deck isn't hurt very badly.
Now, on to the deck.
Jace, Architect of Thought - He started in this deck, so he's staying in it.
Counterspell - It's a counterspell. In a control deck. Stop asking stupid questions.
Dissolve - I picked up the FNM promo, and thought, why not? More counterspells is always a good idea, right?
Mana Leak - I may be pushing it with so many counters, but what can I say? I love my opponent's face when they realised 2 mana just forced them to skip a turn.
Banishing Light - While playtesting, I realised that my counters weren't getting me very far. It wasn't a good idea to keep my spells back just to counter theirs, so I decided to add removal.
Pacifism - Oh, Hero's Bane? What a lovely mana dump you have there.
Brainstorm - The fun part of this deck. I'll get to that in a minute.
Thought Scour - A very satisfying card to play. I don't really know why. Also, very fun.
Elixir of Immortality - Counters don't counter in the graveyard. Also helps greatly with patching me up during early game life loss. Particularly helpful when used 4 times in one turn. See below.
Future Sight - I am in love with this card. My opponent's reaction when I get this down turn 5 is that of laughter. Little do they know, after I've dragged this match on for 10 more turns, I'll have enough mana to Elixir of Immortality, pop off a few brainstorms to build up my hand, scry the boring stuff to the bottom, and repeat. When I end my turn? Oh, my opponent might play something. Well, try. I just brainstormed a full house of counters. This card slowly but surely turns a match of fun and excitement into a battle of anger and frustration.
Increasing Ambition - Seems like an odd choice, but it's my only tutor. Which, for some reason, reads:
Search your library for target Future Sight. If that is already in play, search for a Jace, Architect of Thought. If that is also in play and you have not won somehow, or you're just really bored, search your library for target Stormtide Leviathan.
Doom Blade -Boom. Kill-spell.
Swords to Plowshares - Boom. Exile-Spell. I'd love to add more, but I only have one.
Mind Sculpt - Mill seems like a stupid idea. But with Elixir of Immortality and Future Sight, I can get a lot of cards out of their library. Another awesome, rage-inducing win condition. My favourite kind. Also activates Jace's Phantasm. Speaking of which...
Jace's Phantasm - Why, Rear Eye, is this here? It seems so out of place! Mind Sculpt and the phantasm is a terrible idea! Well, you see, sometimes even I get bored of commanding the fun police. Also, a school isn't a good place for a control strategy, with there being such short breaks and all. So I needed a little bit of a quicker way to win.
Stormtide Leviathan - Sometimes, you just want to slap your opponent in the face with a whale. Sometimes, you can.
Guildgates - I explained before, I run shocklands. Kinda. But gates are so much cheaper, and barely water down the deck at all.
Now, gameplay. I've never taken this to FNM, as nobody plays anything that isn't standard. Casually, I have lost once, maybe twice. Ever. Two people have downright refused to ever play me again so long as I am using this deck, so I think it does pretty well.
A lot of card choices may seem odd, but that's mainly because I have very little cards. I started in Dark Ascension block, didn't become serious until Gatecrash, and drafted conspiracy a few times. That explains my entire collection. So yeah, there are much better choices I could have made here, but I think on a whole, it fits as budget control.
That said, any suggestions would be super helpful! I really want to make this deck playable in a real event, so anything you can add helps!
